When Marley Fisher’s three-year-old daughter asked her to pick up ingredients for corn soup at the grocery store, she unknowingly highlighted the gaps that still exist for Indigenous Peoples.
“White hominy corn, used in the traditional Indigenous dish corn soup, is difficult to get,” said Fisher, a registered dietitian from Munsee-Delaware Nation and a graduate of the foods and nutrition program now housed within the Brescia School of Food and Nutritional Sciences at Western University.
As a dietitian serving Chippewas of the Thames First Nation and one of the few Indigenous dietitians in the region, Fisher is aware of the barriers Indigenous Peoples face in accessing traditional foods.
“We have to bring white corn in from other communities as it isn’t available in local grocery stores. But it makes you think, why isn’t it?”
Identifying gaps in Indigenous health
Born and raised in Munsee-Delaware Nation, Fisher became interested in food and nutrition after a high school course introduced her to the relationship between food and the body.
“I never thought about how food affected me until that class, where I learned what happens to our bodies after we eat certain things.”
Marley Fisher
Fisher went on to Brescia University College, where she earned a bachelor of science in food and nutrition in 2017, followed by a dietetic education and practical training diploma in 2019. The one-year professional, post-graduate program – now part of Western’s Faculty of Health Sciences – prepares students for the Canadian Dietetic Registration Exam.
After passing the exam in 2020, Fisher began working as a community dietitian on Chippewas of the Thames First Nation. In this role, she offers nutrition counselling services and nutrition and diabetes programming with an Indigenous lens.
“I wanted to work as a community…
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